Dispute over power lines clouds bayfront plans

“I don’t know where we’ve done more undergrounding,” said Francisco Urtasun, regional vice president of external relations. “We would not even be moving the substation if it weren’t for the Chula Vista bayfront plan. We consider ourselves partners with the city in this venture, and we have invested considerable time and expense in it.”

Chula Vista Assistant City Manager Gary Halbert said getting the substation moved is the “absolute most important thing to us” and that the city is working with SDG&E to interpret and apply the agreement and the city’s Local Coastal Plan to the current project. But he doesn’t want to push so hard for undergrounding the lines that the substation doesn’t get moved. Urtasun predicted that adding any expense to the project could jeopardize its approval by the utilities commission.

“Ultimately, we’re really not at odds with what John is saying, and we do want (everything on the bayfront) undergrounded, but we don’t want to lose sight of what’s most critical,” Halbert said.

But former Mayor Steve Padilla, who helped negotiate the deal in 2004, said the proposal doesn’t honor the spirit of the agreement.

“The project in front of the CPUC violates Chula Vista’s Local Coastal Plan and the MOU and probably the Coastal Act, and the City of Chula Vista would certainly be willing — in fact, scrambling — to defend those principles if it ended up in the current spot,” he said. “If they were smart, they would do so now.”

He added that despite the project’s failure to honor a long-standing agreement, he is more concerned that this is an issue of social justice.

“If this project was being proposed north of I-8, you bet it would not be being proposed above ground, so why here?” he said. “We would not even be having this conversation if it were in La Jolla.”

SDG&E officials said they do not design their projects based on location but have design standards that apply to every project.

Turley said the existing substation has to go somewhere, and Urtasun pointed out that everyone has known for almost a decade where it was going, with many expressing active support for the project. SDG&E Senior Counsel Estela de Llanos said the relocation site is in an industrial area and won’t, therefore, affect homeowners. Only Inland Industries and one other property owner have expressed any opposition, she said.

The placement of the lines may be a nonissue, though, because members of the California Public Utilities Commission staff have already written that they feel the substation should stay put.

But city staff said leaving the substation where it is would have a “dramatic negative impact” on the recently adopted Bayfront Master Plan, because employment opportunities and wildlife habitat buffers depend on its relocation.

The commission will not make a decision until the final draft of the Environmental Impact Report is finished sometime this spring or summer.